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Billboard, Twitter Debut Real-Time Charts

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After teasing a new real-time chart system last March, Billboard announced today that it has officially teamed with Twitter to provide the first instantaneous music chart system — and it’s out now.

According to Billboard, the charts, in conjunction with Twitter, will rank the most popular songs in the United States based on what is being shared on the social media service. That includes the Trending 140, which offers to-the-minute rankings of songs being shared on Twitter. A weekly summary of the chart will also be available as part of the Billboard Twitter Top Tracks chart.

With the Twitter partnership, Billboard will also present an Emerging Artists chart, which will monitor the volume of shares an up-and-coming artist is receiving on the site. A similar summary chart will also be shared each week.

The amount a song is shared is monitored by shares on the service via links such as Spotify and Vevo, plus with usage of the hashtag #nowplaying or some derivative — including similar terms like “listen” or “track.”

At press time, the No. 1 song on the new Trending 140 chart was Demi Lovato’s “Really Don’t Care,” released last week as the fourth single from her Demi album.

The move follows other integrations of social media into Billboard‘s charts. Previously, the website introduced the Social 50, which follows the social media following of individual artists, and a Streaming Songs chart for music streamed over the Internet.

The charts featured on Radio.com are also updated in real time. The charts include CBS stations on which each song is popular. The current No. 1 on the chart is Justin Timberlake’s “Not a Bad Thing.”